Fossfor's Laboratory

Imagine FX magazine #50

2009-10-27T11:58:00.006+01:00

The 50th issue of ImagineFX magazine is a real smasher. On the DVD you get a demo of Manga Studio EX 4 that has no time limit, this alone is worth the cover price. There is also an article on Craig Mullins, just about the best digital painter ever, a sci-fi workshop with James Gurney and a list of the 50 best living artists. This is an interesting list but I don't agree with a lot of it, and why did they leave out Alan Lee??
I'm really chuffed because my beloved sweetheart has got me a subscription to this mag, so I shall be reviewing it a bit more often on this blog!

Mike Dutton One Swoop Fell video

2009-10-21T14:00:00.006+02:00

One Swoop Fell is a fantastic webcomic made by Mike Dutton. It is one of the best webcomics out there by far, really well drawn with beautiful backgrounds. The story is poetic and sometimes dreamy but also funny and exciting. Something about it reminds of Miyazaki so I was not really surprised to read that he took part in the Totorro Forest Project
There is a film on Vimeo of Mike drawing an episode, I especially loved the inking part of this.

Drawing with a brush in Flash MX

2009-08-20T18:13:00.007+02:00

Bob Flynn is a cartoonist with a great blog called Drip. He writes about using Flash MX to paint and draw. His line work looks very clean but also really natural and hand drawn.
He starts by sketching in a lighter color and then inks making use of the onion skin feature. Flash is quite a fun app to draw with and using the same techniques in this post and quite a bit of patience you can achieve quite a natural line even though drawing with vectors. Read the articles here and here.

Comic tools blog

2009-08-12T14:42:00.002+02:00

Comic tools is a great blog. This guy is very generous with his time and knowledge. Although the title is aimed at comickers this blog has loads of useful info for anyone who draws. I really like his anatomy tutorials, he has some really good tips and tricks for inventing characters and getting them to look right.

Brushes and Colors: digital sketchbooks

2009-07-17T12:02:00.010+02:00

There has been a bit of a buzz lately about Brushes, an app which turns your iPhone into a mini sketchpad. Apparently even David Hockney uses this! I have not tried Brushes but I do use Colors, another little app for the iPhone and Nintendo DS.
Colors is a great app, I use it on my DS lite with a chunky kid's stylus. One of the things that make it so great is that it takes advantage of the pressure sensitivity of the DS lite, just as if you were using a real Wacom or Cyntiq, but pocket sized. I'm not sure if Brushes has this feature but I don't think so.
To put Colors on your DS you have to buy a flash cart for homebrew apps. I use a R4 Revolution for DS. It is quite easy to set up, there is a good walkthrough on joystiq.

Brushes gallery

Colors gallery and my page

Make your own sketch pads

2009-06-30T17:05:00.003+02:00

Instructables is a great site if you like to make stuff like I do. As I tend to hoard paper to draw on and had a ton of loose paper lying around I was pleased to find this Instructable : make a duct tape scratch pad.

This works really well and is perfect for making sketch pads, any size or paper type you want. I added cardboard covers to mine and folded the duct tape over the top to make them stronger. And if you do use thicker paper you need a lot more glue.

I made three sketch pads with this method and am running out of paper now so time to start hoarding again.

Nic Klein Takes Us Inside His Process

2009-05-10T13:36:00.007+02:00

Nic Klein shows his process for painting Viking, a new series for Image comics in this interesting little article. He must work really fast to do two of these a month. I really like the mixture of an acrylic monotone base and digital colours.
I wrote about Nic a while ago on this blog.

Sketch magazine

2009-04-27T14:39:00.003+02:00

Blue Line Pro art supplies have a magazine called Sketch about all things comics, they have some good articles on drawing amongst other things, although I think they have too many adverts.
There is also a very good forum with sections on pencilling , inking, colouring and Tips & tricks.

Kevin Chen demos on ConceptArt

2009-04-27T13:48:00.003+02:00

There is a quite an old thread on the Conceptart.org forums chock full of demo drawings by Kevin Chen. These sketches are amazing, you can learn alot about drawing the figure just by looking through this series. There are 3 pages: Page 1, page 2, and page 3
Kevin Chen is a top figurative teacher and concept artist, there is some of his other work here. I wish I had a teacher like this!

New hub page

2009-04-23T18:49:00.007+02:00

I have written a new article on Hubpages called 3 Essential things to do if you want to learn to draw well

Hobbit paintings by Justin Gerard

2009-03-04T16:13:00.006+01:00

Justin Gerard is an illustrator I had not heard of before I came across his blog where he has some fantastic paintings illustrating the Hobbit. He works on paper with watercolours and then continues the pieces digitally. I think he manages to get the best of both techniques this way when you see the great results.
He has posted the process of the Battle of the Five armies and explains why this scene is so exciting to paint. If you are a Tolkien fan like me you must see these paintings and even if you're not they're still stunning.
There is also an interview on the excellent Tor Sf and fantasy site.

Right or left brain quiz for artists

2009-02-20T17:19:00.002+01:00

This quiz made me chuckle as the some of the questions seem a bit obvious, but I tried to answer honestly and got a score of 70 % in favor of being right brained. This was surprising as I thought it would be the opposite, so maybe it's quite a clever quiz after all.
Have a go and leave me a comment with your score, I would like to know what sort of brains read this blog!

Aviary online applications : vectors

2009-02-20T15:51:00.003+01:00

the Aviary online graphics suite have just released a new vector app called Raven. You can read about it on their blog. If you have no idea what I'm talking about read my previous post about Aviary here.

Work process by Alon

2009-01-05T12:53:00.003+01:00

Alon's Art Work blog has a very interesting process of how he painted this fantastic Waterfall castle. He shows how he to use photocomposition, 3D models and matte painting to bring all it all together.

Create a Cute Vector Monster from a Pencil Sketch

2009-01-05T12:31:00.008+01:00

Blog.spoon grahics has a quite detailed tutorial on creating a character from scratch using vectors. It's well explained even for those who haven't much experience drawing with vectors. When you've made a monster you can then learn how to create a scene to put it in. They use Adobe Illustrator for this one. I aslo quite like to use Flash to draw with, but if you have a tight budget and prefer free software you can also use Inkscape

Conceptual Art tutorial in Photoshop

2008-10-26T12:25:00.012+01:00

There is a good tutorial on painting an enviroment with Photoshop on the idrawgirls site. He shows you how to start with a large brush in b&w and and then refine your shapes and add colour and a bit of detail without losing sight of the whole picture as you go. This technique is very useful as it enables you to work really fast and I work like this a lot. Here are few of my sketches made this way:

2D Artist online magazine

2008-10-23T13:41:00.003+02:00

2D Artist is a downloadable PDF Magazine on concept art, digital and matte-painting. It is full of articles on techniques, tutorials, interviews, galleries and a lot more. You can download a 'lite' version for free or pay for the full one which is $4.50 or €3.24. This is pretty good value. I wish there was a print version, although it would probably be very expensive, and I suppose you could always print out the bits you really like.

How to Use an Angle Finder to Correctly Draw Lines in Perspective

2008-10-21T11:12:00.002+02:00

I saw this article by Dianne Mize on the Emptyeasel site. It is a trick for measuring the angles of perspective lines and training your eye to get them right. I find it best to first lay down your horizon line and vanishing points before you start sketching, but this is a useful way of finding the correct persective lines once you've done your grid.

Dan Blomberg

2008-09-19T14:13:00.007+02:00

Dan Blomberg is a concept artist who lives in Spain. His sketchy style and vibrant colours remind me of Goro Fujita and Craig Mullins. There are some fantastic images on his website, and be sure to visit the sketches section.

Artzmania: Free e-zine n° 9

2008-09-18T17:20:00.003+02:00

There was an issue of the free e zine Artzmania in July that passed me by, but happily you can still download all the back issues here. These zines are packed with interesting images, issue 9 has 478 pages.

David Kassan

2008-09-12T11:43:00.004+02:00

I recently started seeing references to this artist all over the place. His work is amazing, I like the drawings even more than the paintings, especially this self portrait. I think it shows how hard this man must work, he looks exhausted.
There is also a video of a 3 hour drawing condensed into 7 minutes. It is low res but still gives a pretty good idea of how he works. Have a look at his website and blog to see more.

Making fairy tales on Youtube

2008-08-07T12:12:00.003+02:00

Pj Lynch is an Irish illustrator who has an interesting Youtube channel. I especially liked watching 'Making fairy tales part 2', in this video he shows us how he paints a very nice fire -breathing dragon, from the sketch to the final watercolor.

Kristin Elder : demo

2008-07-11T17:22:00.007+02:00

Kristin Elder paints beautiful intricate watercolors. She has posted a work process on her site so you can see her progress from a doodle to this amazing finished painting.

Aviary online applications

2008-07-08T12:41:00.006+02:00

Aviary is a suite of rich internet applications for artists. They have tools for everything from image editing, 3D modelling to audio and word processing for creative writers. All the applications are named after birds.
I have been trying out Phoenix and Peacock.
Phoenix is an image editor similar to Photoshop with layers, filters and blending modes . The brush tool is bit awkward to use and I don't really think it's meant for sketching, but just painting really slowly and precisely. One thing I really like is the liquify tool which is much better than the Photoshop version as you can use it directly on your image and see the effect in real time.
Peacock is a pattern generator but you can do alot more with it than just create patterns. It uses a node system which takes a bit of getting used to if you've never tried it before.
Photoshop also have an online application, Photoshop Express. I have tried it but I think Aviary is alot more powerful.
I have 3 invitations to give away for Peacock and Phoenix. If you would like one, leave me a comment.

Color vision and Art

2008-06-17T17:58:00.003+02:00

Color vision and Art is a site about color theory and the way we see and respond to color. It is fun to read and concise without being simplistic. There are also interactive examples so you can experiment with certain effects for yourself. I wondered who wrote all this and then found a credits page with art historians and neuro biologists. It's well worth a visit.
This site led me to another interesting one called Causes of Color. this goes into detail about why things are a certain color. Some of this involves a lot of physics which gets a bit complicated (well for me, anyway) but it's still fascinating.